@Billie Eilish Album, “Happier Than Ever”

In a recent Variety “Power of Women” cover story, singer Billie Eilish admitted she was “physically attracted to women,” adding her name to the list of performers who have publicly declared their queer sexuality.

When asked to clarify her remarks further during Variety’s Hitmakers event on Saturday, the 21-year-old musician said she’d thought her sexuality was obvious: “I didn’t realize people didn’t know…I’m just like, ‘why can’t we just exist’?

I’ve been doing this for a long time and I just didn’t talk about it. Whoops.”

Eilish added, “It’s exciting to me because I guess people didn’t know, but it’s cool that they know…I am for the girls.”

In her November interview with Variety, Eilish was quoted as saying, “I’ve never really felt I could relate to girls very well. I love them so much. I love them as people. I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real.” Continuing, she added, “I’m physically attracted to them.

But I’m also so intimidated by them and their beauty and their presence.”

Eilish, whose full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, was born in Los Angeles in 2001 into a musical family. Her own career could be described as meteoric. When she was 13, she began recording songs with her brother Finneas. As she later recalled, “We recorded them and put them out on SoundCloud, just for fun.”

One of those songs, “Ocean Eyes,” attracted a lot of attention when it was released in November of 2015. Just two months later, she signed a deal with Platoon, a company that specializes in promoting emerging artists.

In May of 2016, she released a music video of the song, directed by Megan Thompson, on her YouTube channel, and in August, she signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records.

Among the singles she released over the next year included “Bellyache,” “Watch,” “Copycat, “Bitches Broken Hearts,” and “Don’t Smile at Me,” the last of which reached number 14 on the US Billboard 200. Her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released in March of 2019, quickly reaching the top of the Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart. It included the single “Wish You Were Gay.” This song has been described a “a jazzy classic pop song where Eilish sings of her wish that a man she likes was gay in order to explain his lack of romantic interest in her.”

Check out more of Edward’s articles.